Defeated coach going back to drawing board

WELCOME to the cut and thrust of championship football! That seemed to be the message from Kildare to Meath manager Andy McEntee in Tullamore last Saturday evening.

McEntee was part of the Meath squad that won back-to-back All-Irelands in the late 1980s and much more recently managed Dublin outfit Ballyboden St Enda’s to All-Ireland Club success.

Steeped in football virtually all of his life, this was a new experience for him at O’Connor Park after overcoming the ‘two mark questions’ in the victory over Louth.

It wasn’t the experience he was expecting and it is one he will want to erase from the memory as quickly as possible.

‘No excuses. No excuses here,’ McEntee said. ‘We weren’t good enough. We were beaten in most areas of the pitch and everything in the build-up was fine. We just didn’t perform on the day. Too many fellas didn’t perform on the day and that’s what happens.

‘We’re not good enough. When we don’t perform to our maximum, we’re there to be taken.

‘Kildare seemed to get a lot of room up front from the early stages and we seemed to struggle with our kickouts for a while and then the quality of the ball going into the Kildare full forward line.

‘If there is good-quality ball going in in a one-on-one situation it makes it very difficult for the defender and our full back line struggled for most of the game.

‘We were second best in most aspects of the game and in most areas of the pitch. The scoreline reflects that. They had their homework done. We didn’t perform to the level that we would have like to. It was a combination of things.

‘You think you are making progress and then you play a team the quality of Kildare, you get a good spanking and you have to have a look again and see where you go from here.’

Nine points down at half-time it was always going to be difficult for Meath in the second half, but four points in succession after the break improved matters.

‘Ruairi O Coileain came on and got a couple of good scores, then we conceded what looked like a soft enough free and we lost our momentum and we struggled for the remainder of the game,’ McEntee continued.

McEntee could now have a task on his hands lifting his players’ morale ahead of the qualifiers.

‘We don’t have any other option. They either want to play this game or they don’t. We have to go at it again and get ourselves right for the next game.

‘Too many players didn’t get into the game today and too many players would have to admit that they didn’t perform to the level they would have liked to.’

Meanwhile, Kildare boss Cian O’Neill was savouring a sweet victory as he attempts to lead the county to their first provincial title at this level since 2000.

‘It’s a big step forward because, shocking is probably the word to use, to be a Kildare person and not be in a Leinster final for eight years,’ O’Neill said.

‘I was part of that problem obviously last year when we failed against Westmeath. Today was an important match for us. It’s not the kind of thing you want to say to players before a match.

‘You want them to focus on performance but, definitely, from my own perspective, to be there again this year and not jump over that hurdle would have been disappointing and a step back after the league form we showed.

‘But, true to form, they put in a massive shift there and they reaped the rewards of the work they put in all year.’